Monday, October 27, 2008

Hard to Get to Know Jenn McGinn

Above photo from Jenn McGinn's campaign website

Although "Get to Know Jenn McGinn" is the headline on the website of the NDP candidate in the current by-election in Vancouver-Fairview, it is not so easy to get to know her. McGinn ignored a written request by CUPEwatch to state her position on alleged abuse and illegal conduct by her campaign funders, CUPE, BC Federation of Labour and their respective leaders Barry O'Neill and Jim Sinclair, in what has become known as the “secretary scandal”. The alleged illegal activity was reportedly intended to silence secretaries about unfair labour practices inside CUPE.

The secretary scandal involves documented evidence that CUPE, with the cooperation of BC Fed President Jim Sinclair, allegedly employed intimidation tactics in an attempt to muzzle a secretary from CUPE Local 116 after she blew the whistle about unfair labour practices. The secretary had complained to Sinclair and O'Neill about the fact that CUPE was staffing the Local 116 office exclusively with non-union secretaries and then firing them when they complained about triple workloads. The whistle blowing secretary was highly credible as she was the only woman NOT fired from Local 116; she had earlier resigned her secretarial position and received a glowing letter of reference.

There is evidence to support allegations that CUPE, the BC Federation of Labour, and lawyer Ian Aikenhead (a former NDP President) arranged for the Vancouver Police to “harass” the whistle blowing secretary at her home. (The Vancouver Police do not have jurisdiction at Local 116 which is on the UBC Endowment Lands.) The secretary was shocked to discover that a polite, professional, letter she had sent to Sinclair about working conditions at Local 116 was filed in the Police Property office. A similar letter she had sent to O'Neill was filed there too.

There are also allegations of “evidence tampering” in this case. The secretary learned from the police report that a woman pursuing the issue of unfair labour practices with CUPE or the BC Fed is considered to be engaging in “WORKPLACE HARASSMENT”. The secretary then told Sinclair that she intended to ensure that this labelling stuck to his reputation. Later, she discovered that the label on the “CLOSED” police report had been retroactively – and illegally – altered to drop the word “WORKPLACE” and substitute “HARASSMENT/OBSCENCE COMMUNICATION”.

Although McGinn won’t state her position on the secretary abuse issue, the whistleblowing secretary has always been clear about her own position: If CUPE and the BC Fed think it is obscene or harassing for a woman to bring abuse of non-union secretaries inside CUPE to their attention, Jenn McGinn should not have been taking money from them. “She should have told them to stuff it”.

My issue with this candidate, and all others associated, is the dishonesty of the unionists and their manipulation of the honest citizenry: We do not live in a time or condition of Manchester Capitalism. Typists and file clerks and so on are not slaving away at starvation wages in sweatshops working piecemeal for fat-cat tycoons lording it over them inside federal government offices and et c. Nope. It doesn't happen, and not because of unions protecting workers from the ever-luring danger of incipient Manchesterism in government offices. People in the economy so much hated by the unionists generally, particularly in the public sector, i.e. capitalism, are parasites leeching from the working classes who pay th wage inflation gouged from the public at large through unions themselves. Look at the recent civic strike in Vancouver where the city employees press-ganged those at Carnegie Centre to support unionist demands for higher wages. The money for the wage increases come from the working classes, pressured from them by unionist working in no-profit, i.e. no gain/ no capital increase employment. No new money is created in civic government work, but the money they get paid is more than before. Some has to pay; and that someone is the worker outside the government union. Who got dragged into making that come about? Those at the Carnegie Centre who were emotionally blackmailed into standing around in public supporting those who control the $.80 per hour food stamps some few get.

Who benefitted from the wage hike? The very few unionists in a nepotistic union, a family affair, for many. What of the folks at Carnegie? Uh, nothing. The working class taxpayer gets the bill.

Don't unions keep wages high? Well? What good is a raise of the minimum wage if the union demands the same percentage wage increase? If the minimum wage increases by 20 percent to $10.00 per hour, what good does it do if the unionist's wage also increases by 20 percent from $40.00 per hour to $50.00? Rather than a guy making a $2.00 per hour wage and laughing, he's now shopping in the same economy where the guy next to him just got a $10.00 per hour raise. Will things remain at the same price as prior to the increase?

We're not even complaining about foolish socialist pseudo-economics: this unionist rubbish is simply an in-group squeezing the people for the gain of the in-crowd. They pull any manipulative trick they can think of, and since they get away with it, well, good for them till it's all over for all of us.

What's good about unionist parasites? If they do the job well they can demand market payment, which is reflected in the demand for their labour. In a market/ consumer economy, businesses compete for skilled labour. It's like the super market where people compete for groceries. It works just fine. If the store won't pay, the workers go elsewhere and get what they can and shop around like anyone else who's free to do so. Unionism isn't even socialism, it's corporatism. No market, just appanage for the outsiders.

But the clearest picture of unionism is Jim Crow. Only the color has changed over the generations. Unions, for those who didn't know, implemented the Jim Crow laws to keep Blacks and others out. Not the companies, because they pay for labour rather than personalities. Capital doesn't care what color you are so long as you can do the job. It's the unions who kept Blacks out. And now it's only different in that unions keep out anyone they don't like for whatever other reasons that come to mind. Still a closed shop in a closed world of feudal minds.